IPv6 mailing lists

I’ve been lurking on three IPv6 mailing lists for the past few months: v6ops , ipv6-ops, and ipv6hackers. While there is some overlap in the people and topics discussed, each list is uniquely useful and has a different focus and flavor.

v6ops@ietf.org – this IETF list has a lot of focus on making sure that Internet standards (RFCs) are operationally practical and useful. There’s a lot of time spent discussing Internet-draft (pre-RFC) documents, in the context of real-world operations.

ipv6-ops@lists.cluenet.de – “This list is a forum for people who are actually deploying IPv6 in the Internet. Its focus is on OPERATIONAL issues (especially BGP routing) and development of the production IPv6 Internet cloud.” This list seems to have a lot more world wide network operators discussing real-world problems with IPv6 either as deployments or as bugs in router code. If you want to see what in-the-trenches network operators are seeing as they deploy IPv6, read this list.

ipv6hackers@lists.si6networks.com – This list “… is meant to provide forum for IPv6 security researchers and IPv6 networking professionals to discuss low-level IPv6 networking and security issues that could eventually lead to advances and improvements in the area of IPv6 security and IPv6 networking.” This list seems to be much lower-volume, and has some overlap with the other two lists. I have seen discussions on IPv6 programming (app development and porting), which I haven’t seen as much in other places.

All three of these lists have been useful. I’ve seen discussions of the things that are blocking users and networks from moving to IPv6 (“my users need Skype”), to bugs in various flavors of router code, to unintended interactions between RFCs that break IPv6 deployments.

While some of what is discussed is beyond the scope of a simple home network, or even a moderately-complex corporate network, seeing all this is valuable. I know that at some point I’ll hit some IPv6 roadblock, and someone on one of these lists will have the answer.

If you’re serious about IPv6, you should join the community, and these lists are where that community is talking about the future.